Just a few weeks after the full results of SURMOUNT-5 crowned Eli Lilly’s GLP-1/GIP tirzepatide king of the GLP-1s, Regeneron announced it will pay Hansoh Pharma $80M upfront and up to $1.93B in milestone payments for its Phase 3-stage GLP-1/GIP drug, HS-20094.
- Up until now, the weight loss conversation was a debate between Novo Nordisk’s GLP-1 semaglutide and Lilly’s GLP-1/GIP tirzepatide, with research broadly favoring the latter.
- While Regeneron is far from the first to buy a GLP-1 pipeline, it’s bullish on Hansoh’s formula due to its testing in China.
- The eventual $2B price tag sounds like a lot, but this $80M up-front deal is low-risk compared to others like Roche’s $2.7B upfront acquisition of Carmot for its GLP-1.
It’s the early testing edge that has Regeneron excited about Hansoh’s HS-20094, since the drug has already been studied in over 1k patients, leading Regeneron to claim it has a “potentially similar profile” to Lilly’s popular GLP-1/GIP agonist.
- Hansoh is currently running both a phase 2b study of the drug in diabetes and a phase 3 trial in obesity in its home territory of China.
- However, it’s worth noting that obesity in China and obesity in the U.S. are not the same, partially due to China’s ethnic homogeneity and vastly different food culture.
Regeneron isn’t just buying a gold ticket to the GLP-1 show, as it also intends to use Hansoh’s GLP-1/GIP to study combinations with its proprietary drugs and candidates for addressing muscle loss and other obesity comorbidities like CVD and T2D.
- For example, Regeneron recently showed combining its antibody trevogrumab with semaglutide helped preserve lean mass while increasing fat mass loss.
- Swiss pharma giant Roche is also hoping it can combine the GLP-1 it acquired through buying Carmot with its own antibody for reducing muscle loss during weight loss.
The Takeaway
While both Novo and Lilly have multi-year regulatory head-starts and are now rapidly becoming part of the zeitgeist around treating obesity, Regeneron’s angle of addressing muscle loss could help set it apart from other GLP-1 hopefuls and even incumbents by leading to improved long-term outcomes.
